Operation: Midnight Escape

by Linda Castillo

  Twenty yards from the front door he stopped, the pistol he’d tucked into his waistband pressing reassuringly against his back. “Rasmussen!” he shouted. “I’m here! Come get me!”

  No answer.

  Jake’s heart began to hammer.

  The cabin was deserted, he realized, and broke into a run toward the front door. Five yards out he spotted blood in the snow, and he went wild. All he could think was that they’d hurt Leigh. He dashed to the front door and burst into the cabin.

  “Leigh!” he yelled. “Leigh!”

  The only answer was the whistle of wind through the trees. The tinkle of snow against the windows. And the thrum of his own terror.

  THE SNOWFALL WAS SO HEAVY Leigh couldn’t see more than a few yards ahead. Rasmussen gripped her right arm. The thug with the limp walked beside her to her left. Twice she’d broken free and tried to run. Twice, hindered by the handcuffs, she’d been caught before getting more than a few yards.

  They were on the lake and had been walking for ten minutes. All around the lake stretched like a vast frozen plain of endless white.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked Rasmussen. “Why didn’t you just flee while you could?”

  He stopped and gave her his full attention. “Because I have a reputation to maintain.”

  “Reputation?”

  “You made a laughingstock of me, my love. You committed the ultimate sin when you betrayed me. No one betrays Ian Rasmussen and lives to tell about it. Especially a woman.”

  She cringed when he raised his hand and brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek. “Don’t think for a minute this is easy for me,” he said. “I loved you.”

  This man had absolutely no idea what love was.

  He leaned close to kiss her, but Leigh turned her head. “Don’t,” she said.

  Rasmussen stepped back, his expression as cold and hard as the ice beneath her feet. “In a few minutes, my darling, you’ll be begging me to forgive you.”

  Movement a few yards ahead drew her attention. For an instant she thought Jake had arrived to save her from what would surely be a terrible death. Her faint hope died, though, when they reached their destination.

  The man in the parka had used a chain saw to cut a rectangular square the size of a bathtub in the ice. Next to the hole, a length of heavy chain was piled on the ice like a giant steel snake. It didn’t take much imagination for her to realize what they were going to do to her.

  Several yards away a small helicopter looked out of place on the ice. The pilot stood just outside its doors, smoking a cigarette.

  “Any sign of Vanderpol?” Rasmussen asked.

  The thug standing next to the hole in the ice shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “He’s probably at the cabin,” the man gripping her arm said.

  Rasmussen looked toward the chopper. “I’d hoped he would be here to witness her death.”

  All three men glanced over at the pilot, who’d approached the group. “We need to take off now, Mr. Rasmussen. We’ve got lake-effect snow moving in. Visibility is dwindling fast. If the weather gets any worse, we could find ourselves stranded.”

  Rasmussen nodded, then his gaze landed on Leigh. “Put the chain on her.”

  Leigh had thought she knew the meaning of terror. But the thought of what they were going to do to her was worse than anything she could have imagined even in her nightmares. Her entire body began to tremble violently. Her heart beat out of control in her chest.

  Rasmussen seemed to be enjoying her fear. “That twenty foot length of chain weighs almost a hundred pounds, my love. Once we wrap it around you and throw you into the water, you’ll go down like a rock.”

  “Don’t do this,” she heard herself say.

  “The water here is about forty feet deep,” he told her. “The ice this far north doesn’t melt completely until April. By then you’ll be little more than bones. No one will ever find your body.”

  “You bastard,” she choked.

  One side of his mouth curved. “Goodbye, my darling.” He nodded at the two men. “Do it.”

  The man in the ponytail bent to pick up one end of the heavy chain. The other man started toward her. Running would be futile. The odds of her getting away were slim to none. But her will to live would not let her go down without a fight.

  She threw herself into a sprint. The handcuffs hampered her, but she didn’t let them slow her down. She heard shouting behind her, but she didn’t take time to look over her shoulder. She ran at a dangerous speed, plowing through snowdrifts, slipping on patches of ice, maintaining her balance by the sheer force of her will. “Jake!” she shouted. “Jake! Help me!”

  In her peripheral vision she saw one of the men sprinting toward her off to her right. He was so close she could hear the crunching of his boots on the snow. Leigh veered left. She ran as fast as her legs would allow, sliding and stumbling.

  Her leg muscles screamed with fatigue. Her heart threatened to burst. She didn’t know how much ground she’d covered. It felt like miles. Then, seemingly out of nowhere a strong hand seized hold of her shoulder and spun her around. She caught a glimpse of a pock-marked face. Her legs tangled. She hit the ice hard, the breath rushing from her lungs.

  The next thing she knew she was being jerked roughly to her feet. “Walk,” the thug with the ponytail snapped.

  Oh, dear God, this is it, she thought. They’re going to kill me.

  She had to face the terrifying reality that she wasn’t going to get out of this. That she would never see Jake again. That she would never have the chance to tell him she loved him.

  Her heart broke as she began the long walk to her death.

  JAKE CLEARED THE CABIN in less than a minute. The whole time, terror clawed at him with the fervor of a frantic animal.

  Where the hell had they taken Leigh? Was it her blood he’d seen in the snow? What had they done to her?

  The thought of her injured and in pain tore him up inside. Struggling to remain calm, he stood in the living room. He had to focus if he was going to think this through. If he was going to find her in time to save her life.

  “Easy, buddy,” he muttered. “Come on. Think.”

  He looked around the living room. There were no weapons, which meant they’d taken whatever they’d had with them. He quickly searched the bedroom and kitchen but found nothing. He found a snow camouflage parka, pants and gloves in the mudroom. He went out the back door. That was when he remembered the three snowmobiles.

  Rasmussen, his thugs and Leigh hadn’t left the area. They’d merely left the cabin. But why had he taken her into the woods instead of making a run for it and taking her with him? What could he possibly have in mind?

  Jake scanned the surrounding woods. Any tracks they might have made had been covered by the falling snow. Then he remembered that the cabin wasn’t far from the lake. Rasmussen might have taken her there. There were no trees, which would make an excellent landing point for a small chopper. Even though the lake was frozen with a foot of ice, a chain-saw would make short work of the ice. The deep water would be the perfect place to hide two bodies….

  Dashing back inside, Jake tore off his snowmobile suit and stepped into the snow camouflage parka and pants. If the heavy snowfall continued, he might just be able to reach her before it was too late.

  He sprinted through the woods, muscling through drifts and fallen logs. Branches scratched at his face and snagged his clothes, but he didn’t slow down. His heart dropped when he spotted a person lying against a tree a dozen yards away. He looked down and saw blood in the snow. Plenty of it. Leigh, he thought, and sprinted to the tree.

  Mike Madrid lay on his side, the snow surrounding him dark with blood. For a moment Jake thought he was dead. “Aw, man, no.”

  Then Madrid raised his head and cursed. “Took you long enough,” he said weakly.

  Jake began to assess the other man’s injuries. “Easy, partner. Let me have a look at you.”

  Gently he r
olled Madrid onto his back. The other man groaned. He’d been shot in the abdomen and was slowly bleeding out.

  “Bastard has armor-piercing bullets,” Madrid said.

  Jake snatched up his cell phone and dialed Sean Cutter. Cutter picked up on the first ring.

  “I got a man down,” Jake said without preamble.

  Cutter swore. “Who?”

  “Madrid.”

  “How bad?”

  “Code red.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Michigan. Southeast of Sault Sainte Marie. I’ll turn on his GPS. We got heavy weather, Sean.”

  “Anything else I need to know?”

  “Come armed.” Jake disconnected and turned to Madrid. “Where did they take Leigh?”

  “I was in and out of consciousness for a while. But from what I gathered, they’re going to kill her, drop her body through the ice,” Madrid said, gasping for breath.

  Jake broke a sweat beneath his winter gear.

  As if the words had taken too much energy, Madrid closed his eyes. Jake reached out and touched the other man’s shoulder. “You’re going to be all right, partner.”

  “Go get that…son of a bitch.”

  Jake knew how painful a gut shot was and wished there was something he could do. He reached into Madrid’s coat and pulled out his cell phone. Removing the back, he turned on the GPS chip all MIDNIGHT agents were required to have installed and tucked the phone back into Madrid’s coat pocket. “Cutter’s on the way with a medivac.”

  “Go get her, Vanderpol.”

  Jake squeezed Madrid’s shoulder, then rose and started toward the lake. He ran for what seemed like miles. Abruptly the trees opened to a vast white plain Jake recognized as the lake. He skidded down the embankment and hit the ice running. Visibility was only a few yards. He had no idea which direction he was going. He didn’t even know if his hunch was right. All he knew was that he was out of options.

  He’d just hit his stride when a scream shattered the silence. He halted, listening.

  “Jake! Jaaaaake! Help me!”

  The terror in Leigh’s voice shattered his heart. If he didn’t get to her soon, it would be too late.

  Adrenaline pumping full force through his body, Jake started in the direction of her screams.

  LEIGH COULD FEEL the cold numbing her body as she trudged through the snow toward certain death. But even though she was terrified of the horrors that waited for her beneath the ice, she could only think of Jake. Oh, how she’d wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. That she would never get the chance broke her heart.

  She shouted his name, but her voice was getting weak. The cold and terror working in tandem were zapping her strength. She’d sworn she wouldn’t give Rasmussen the satisfaction of seeing her cry. But as the thug forced her closer to the hole in the ice, she had to choke back sobs.

  The thug who’d caught her and was now taking her to Rasmussen had grown silent. Even his grip on her arm had loosened some. Leigh suspected he might have a smidgen of humanity left in the shell of his heart, but she knew it was not enough to save her. She knew Rasmussen would kill anyone who got in the way of his goal, including his own men.

  She stumbled on the ice where the surface had buckled, and fell to her knees, sobbing openly now. Wherever Jake was, she prayed he was safe.

  “Get up, lady.”

  The thug’s voice reached her as if from a great distance. Not certain she had the strength to rise, she looked up. The snow was coming down so hard she could barely make out his expression.

  “I need to rest,” she said.

  “You’re going to get plenty of rest where you’re going.” He took her arm. “Let’s go.”

  A shift in light behind him caught her attention. A spec of gray.

  “All right,” she said. But she didn’t move, looking at the speck of gray she’d seen earlier. It was moving closer. At first she thought it was a bear or deer perhaps. Then she realized it was a man dressed in full snow camouflage gear running toward them.

  One of the agents from MIDNIGHT? Had Jake come through for her after all? Suddenly it dawned on her that if the thug straightened and looked behind him, whomever was approaching would be dead in a fraction of a second. She needed to distract her captor.

  “I…I think I sprained my ankle,” she blurted.

  The man glared at her. “Do I look like I care? Get up and walk or I’m going to drag you.”

  Leigh feigned difficulty rising. The thought of rescue made her almost giddy with hope. But the situation could still explode into violence any moment.

  When the thug grasped her hair, she cried out in pain. “I said get up!”

  She stumbled to her feet, the man’s fingers digging into her arm, forcing her to walk.

  “I think I’m going to faint,” she said.

  But her words were too late. He’d looked over his shoulder, squinting through the heavy snowfall. He spotted the person approaching, and froze.

  He dropped to one knee, brought up the rifle and took aim. Leigh did the only thing she could, and rammed him with her shoulder. A gunshot shattered the silence.

  “Bitch!” he snarled, butting her with the rifle and sending her flying backward into the snow.

  As if in slow motion she saw the man bring up the rifle, set the scope to his eye and take aim at the figure in the distance.

  “No!” she yelled, getting to her feet.

  A gunshot rent the air, and the thug clutched his chest, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. The rifle fell to the ground. Blood leaked between his fingers. Then he was falling forward…

  Not sure who the figure in the distance was, Leigh began to run blindly through the snow, sobbing and choking. Then a hand slapped over her mouth, and the next thing she knew she was being tackled to the ground. She braced for the impact, but at the last minute her attacker twisted and she landed on top of him.

  “Easy, honey. It’s Jake. You’re safe.”

  Relief rushed through her with such force that she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t think. All she could do was feel his body, solid and sure against her. Then she remembered that Rasmussen and at least two other men were waiting for them. That they planned to kill her. And if she and Jake wanted to live, they were going to have to act quickly.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jake had never considered himself an emotional man. But even after ascertaining that Leigh was unhurt, he couldn’t stop touching her.

  She was trying to speak, but he kissed her. Not a sexual kiss, but a kiss that spoke of something much deeper, much more profound.

  “We have to stop Rasmussen,” she panted.

  “I need to get you to safety,” he said. “That’s all that matters.”

  Taking her arm, he guided her back to where the thug had fallen. He went through the man’s pockets. When he found the handcuff key, he turned her around and unlocked one of the cuffs.

  After he did, she flung her arms around him, and for several emotional minutes he did nothing but hold her and stroke her and whisper her name.

  “He didn’t hurt you?” Jake asked.

  “No.” She bit her lip. “What about Madrid?”

  Jake grimaced. “He’s down. Medivac’s on the way.” If the weather holds, he thought.

  “Let’s go.” Careful to be gentle with her, he guided her in the general direction of the cabin, but she dug in her heels and stopped.

  “No.” Shaking off his grip, Leigh stopped and turned to face him. “We can’t let him get away.”

  “I don’t care about Rasmussen,” Jake said. “All I care about is you.” He only wished he’d said those words six years ago.

  She blinked back tears. “Jake, we have to stop him. We can’t let him get away with what he’s done.”

  “I’m not going to risk your getting hurt.”

  “I’m your only hope of stopping him.” She pointed at the swirling white expanse of the lake. “He’s out there, waiting for his thug to return with me. Th
ere’s a chopper waiting. He’s going to kill me and flee the country.”

  “No,” he said.

  She got in his face. “Jake, we have to do this.”

  “I did it six years ago and I’ve regretted it ever since!”

  “You did the right thing!” she shouted back.

  Jake couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Couldn’t believe what he was feeling. He’d never forgiven himself for not stopping her six years ago. Now she wanted to do the same thing all over again. Only, this time she knew fully that Rasmussen planned to kill her.

  “If we don’t do this, we may as well hand our fu tures to Rasmussen. Let me tell you something, Jake. I’m not going to do it. I’m sick of having to move every six months. Never living in any one place long enough to make friends.”

  “We have each other.” But he knew it was a weak rationalization.

  “He’ll go after your family,” she said. “Your fellow agents.”

  Jake thought of Madrid and a wave of fresh fury washed through him. He hated it, but she was right. “Okay,” he ground out. “But we do it on my terms.”

  JAKE DONNED the thug’s trench coat and ski mask. Tucking his pistol into his pocket, he picked up the thug’s rifle. He loosely secured the cuffs at Leigh’s wrists. He hated seeing her hands bound, but if they were going to pull this off, they had to make it look believable.

  He found a second pistol in the thug’s boot and dropped it into Leigh’s coat pocket. “If anything happens, you can tug on the cuffs. The left one is loose. The right one is locked in place.”

  When she nodded, he was suddenly overcome by doubt and wanted to nix the entire idea. The plan was incredibly dangerous. Too dangerous. He couldn’t bear the thought of her getting hurt. “I want you to shoot first and ask questions later. You got that?”

  Even frightened and disheveled, she was breath takingly beautiful. But her eyes were dark with fear. Fear he wished she’d never had to feel.

  “I can handle it.”

  He didn’t think she could. Hell, he could barely handle this and he was a trained agent. “You’re way over your head, Leigh.”

  “So are you.”